Saturday, August 16, 2008

Hey, all! As you know, this is the return of my weekly segment on the YA book world. In the past, while I was actively doing this, remember how I included author and reviewer links, as well as new releases for that week?

Well, that was boring me. (And also, some other reviewers started doing the exact same thing >.< )Check out one of the new YA Weekly features, a weekly contest to accompany it. Other new features will be made prominent when I have enough resources ;)

... hope you enjoy! Also, if you're looking for a more frequent update in the book world, go over to YA Fabulous. Now that site rocks this newsreel bit!

From the authors...A.S. King (The Dust of 100 Dogs) has got her own property here on Reviewer X - scroll down to the end of my sidebar! She's also in the middle of copyedits. Visit her over on MySpace and leave comments begging for more frequent, ACTUAL blog updates.

From the reviewers...(The reviewers included here are for the most part randomly added. If you're not one of the ones regularly added [sorry about that, but there are so many on my blogroll], feel free to email me to have your link added next week.)

Contest inventory...[Best source of contest links in the YA book blogger world is Book Muncher's list.]

Elizabeth Scott is always having awesome contests, but I think she may have outdone herself in this one. The prize is FIVE books of your choice for FIVE winners. Go enter. Ah, here's wishing I were a US-lander.

Bookluver Carol is having a contest where first place winner gets two books of their choice from her selection and second place winner gets one. Among the prizes are Evernightby Claudia Gray, Oh. My. Gods.by Tera Lynn Childs (signed), and Tantalize by Cynthia Leitich Smith.

New Yorker Gillian Chang starts her second term at posh SpencerAcademy boarding school in San Francisco prepared to focus on her studies, her faith, and her friends. She plays a dozen musical instruments and can recite the periodic table of the elements backward. She's totally prepared for everything--except love! She's falling hard for Lucas Hayes, who isn't even a senior yet and is already aiming at a Ph.D. in physics from Stanford. The problem is, she never seems to be able to measure up and be the girlfriend he wants. He's under a lot of pressure from his parents to achieve--maybe that's why he's short-tempered sometimes. But even a thick-skinned girl like Gillian can only take so much.

With her heart on the line, Gillian conceals more and more from her friends. So when she's accused of selling exam answer sheets, even her girlfriends, Lissa Mansfield and Carly Aragon, wonder if it can be true. Gillian will need the power of honesty--with herself and with Lucas--to show what she's really made of.

I stopped, dumbfounded. My grandmother was at my bedroom door. “What the hell are you doing?” she asked, surprised but not angry. I looked down at my dress. “Playing school.” My grandmother began stroking her chin. Clearly, there were several ways she could take this conversation. “Matthew, what are you wearing?” I could see that she didn’t really want to ask this question but felt she had to. “A dress,” I said. . . . “And where did you get this dress?” she asked. . . . “I found it?” My grandmother sighed. “So you’ve been wandering around the women’s department at JC Penney? Do you expect me to believe you couldn’t find a better dress than that?”

The only Jewish family in a luxury Fifth Avenue building of WASPs, the senior Rothschilds took over the responsibility of raising their grandson, Matt, after his mother left him for Italy and a fourth husband. But rearing Matt was no small task—even for his sharp-tongued grandmother, a cross between Lauren Bacall and Bea Arthur, and a lady who Matt grew to love deeply.

Matt secretly wore his grandmother’s dresses, shoplifted Barbies from FAO Schwarz, invented an imaginary midget butler who he addressed at dinner parties, and got kicked out of nearly every elite school in Manhattan—once for his impersonation of Judy Garland at a recital. He was eventually sent to a boarding school (his grandmother had to ransom off a van Gogh to get him in). But as funny as his hijinks are now, at the time they masked a Jewfroed, chubby, lovable kid, sexually confused and abandoned by his mother, trying to fit in among the precious genteel world he was forced to live in.

Matt Rothschild—the man David Sedaris could have been if he’d grown up in an esteemed family on Manhattan’s Upper East Side—tells the story of his childhood with humor, honesty, and unlikely compassion for his eccentric relatives, including his mother, in this bitingly entertaining and unexpectedly tender memoir of family dysfunction.

ERNIE HAS ARRIVED! And so has the future. Except it’s not the future Ned, Suzi, and Roop imagined. Vorg, the evil master of time, has traveled into the past and changed the future. MegaCity is no more. In fact, the planet’s a mess Kids everywhere are afraid of Vorg and his Klenn henchmen. It’s up to the Time Surfers to make things right again. With his best friend by his side, Ned is ready for an all-out battle to save the future. But is it too late?

SUMMER IS ALMOST here and there’s only one thing standing between Ned and freedom—his duty as a Time Surfer. When Roop and Suzi arrive from the future and tell Ned his surfie’s been seen around MegaCity, Ned knows he’s in big trouble. And with trouble comes Vorg. Vorg’s hatching a plan to eliminate the Time Surfers forever. And Ned Banks is first on his list.

DANNY’S TALL AND skinny. Even though he’s not built, his arms are long enough to give his pitch a power so fierce any college scout would sign him on the spot. A 95 mph fastball, but the boy’s not even on a team. Every time he gets up on the mound he loses it.

But at his private school, they don’t expect much else from him. Danny’s brown. Half-Mexican brown. And growing up in San Diego that close to the border means everyone else knows exactly who he is before he even opens his mouth. Before they find out he can’t speak Spanish, and before they realize his mom has blond hair and blue eyes, they’ve got him pegged. Danny’s convinced it’s his whiteness that sent his father back to Mexico. And that’s why he’s spending the summer with his dad’s family. Only, to find himself, he might just have to face the demons he refuses to see right in front of his face.

Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Writing Thank-You Notes by Peggy GiffordIt isn't as though Moxy isn’t grateful for her Christmas presents. She is. She’s just not thrilled that she has to write a thank-you note for each one by tomorrow . . . or she will not be allowed to fly to Hollywood to attend a starstudded.

Hollywood bash with the father she hasn’t seen in three years. And writing thank-you notes is not something that a world-class Creative Type relishes doing. But it is more than writing thank-you notes that finally prevents Moxy from taking her trip. When her father cancels at the last minute, Moxy is forced to deal with the reality of a situation she doesn’t want to accept, and can’t change. But, not surprisingly, she rises to the occasion brilliantly.

The Order of Odd-Fish by James KennedyJo Larouch has lived her 13 years in the California desert with her Aunt Lily, ever since she was dropped on Lily’s doorstep with this note: This is Jo. Please take care of her. But beware. This is a dangerous baby. At Lily’s annual Christmas costume party, a variety of strange events take place that lead Jo and Lily out of California forever—and into the mysterious, strange, fantastical world of Eldritch City. There, Jo learns the scandalous truth about who she is, and she and Lily join the Order of Odd-Fish, a collection of knights who research useless information. Glamorous cockroach butlers, pointless quests, obsolete weapons, and bizarre festivals fill their days, but two villains are controlling their fate. Jo is inching closer and closer to the day when her destiny is fulfilled, and no one in Eldritch City will ever be the same.

Rune, magic, time, travel, transformation: Sky’s grandfather opened up a world of limitless possibility . . . then asked the impossible. He asked Sky to kill a man. Sky and Kristin know they have to stop Sigurd. But how, when he can possess any person, any beast, at will? Once more, the answer is to be found back along the bloodlines. The secret of possession lies in Meg, an accused witch, and in Matthew, the Witchfinder determined to capture her. But the price for knowing what Sigurd knows is steep—to defeat their grandfather, will they have to become exactly like him?

In this thrilling conclusion to the Runestone Saga, the final choice between everlasting life and the necessity of death will be made at one of the great turning points in history—a battle, quite literally, for all time. And the outcome rests precariously on one final cast of the runes. . . .

THIRTEEN-YEAR-OLD Joe is the ultimate trophy kid. His adoptive parents are Hollywood’s favorite power couple, Academy Award–winning actress Greta Powell and actor/director/political candidate Robert Francis. Life with them has been one big photo-op since Joe became a war orphan at the ripe old age of three. And what better way for Greta and Robert to celebrate how far Joe’s come—and how much they’ve helped him—than for Joe to describe his experiences in a moving autobiography?Of course, Greta and Robert don’t actually intend for Joe to write the book himself. Or for him to include any unflattering details about them. That’s why they’ve hired an experienced professional for the job. But Tom Dolan is no ordinary writer, and he’s determined to help Joe tell the real story of growing up with the two most famous celebrities in America. Even if it means going back to Joe’s homeland, with his image-conscious parents in tow. . . .

How will garage band front man Duncan ever get the attention of his goddess like classmate Carly, who’s so busy trying to save the world that she won’t even look in his direction? An idea hits him, literally: when Duncan accidentally bruises himself, Carly wants to know who punched him, and vows to take care of “poor widdle Dunky.” But as his black eye fades, so does Carly’s devotion. Duncan needs a plan. He needs impending danger. He needs a BULLY. The search is on.

This hilarious novel plays with the certainty that teenage boys will do just about anything to get a girl’s attention.

Next week on Reviewer X...The usual =)

And now I leave you with...

Comment with "[contest entry]" to win a copy of Jennifer Ziegler's Alpha Dog. (Be SURE to include the "[contest entry]". Lots of people comment here for other reasons and I want to be sure you're entering the contest or not. Entries that do not clarify the such are NOT counted.)

Extra entries may be earned by blogging about it or adding a link to your contest sidebar. Contest goes on until next Young Adult Weekly!

You brought back Young Adult weekly! YAY! Please enter me in the contest. The books I'm giving away are on my right sidebar. I already gave away Oh.My.Gods and Evernight. I still got Tantalize and some other books. Can you please change it?And thanks for including my contest in the YA weekly! :)

Yay for YA Weekly! Thanks for plugging my blog, too. I really need to get back to that whole, um, blogging thing...esp. now that I've finished the FINAL (and I really do mean/think FINAL) round of revisions for FAKETASTIC. WOO HOO. Off to outline book three now. Just wait till you hear about THAT one. Methinks it's gonna be good. Hope you're doing well, too. XO

I am glad you're back, because I missed the new releases section. I wouldn't even know where to start looking for that information, and you're the only YA blogger that I've found that takes the time to collect it, although some of the SF/F blogs would include YA SF/F. That's just a small sample, though. Yours is awesome!

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